Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/csi.4054
Middle Ages or Renaissance? Rapacka on Marulić
Tomislav Bogdan
orcid.org/0000-0003-3353-6509
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Great Polish scholar of Slavic and Croatian studies Joanna Rapacka (1939–2000) published three studies on Marko Marulić (1450–1524), later united under the title “Fragmenti o Maruliću” [“Fragments on Marulić”]. Rapacka refers to Marulić in relevant places in several other works, for example in the articles in her Leksykon tradycji chorwackich (Lexicon of Croatian Traditions) and in her studies on the formation of modern Croatian nation and regionalism in premodern Croatian literary culture. Rapacka’s theses on Marulić are worth emphasising and analysing in detail for two reasons: they continue to be relevant for understanding Marulić’s literary opus; and they have not been paid critical attention by contemporary Croatian studies as deserved. Rapacka closely links Marulić, particularly the vernacular part of his opus, to the poetics of the European literary Middle Ages, whereas, in the last decades, Croatian literary historiography has put much effort in Marulić’s ‘de-medievalisation’. Marulić is, without doubt, a poetically heterogenous author standing between the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but when he writes in Croatian in his later years, his affinity for medieval literary tradition becomes very prominent. If Rapacka’s works are read closely, it becomes clear that, in her opinion, Marulić is the first (and only) great author of Croatian medieval literature.
Keywords
Joanna Rapacka; Marko Marulić; periodisation; Renaissance; Middle Ages
Hrčak ID:
288381
URI
Publication date:
24.12.2022.
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